The Doomsday Machine (episode)
Series: TOS Season: 2 Original Airdate: 1967-10-20 Production Number: 35 Year: 2267 Stardate: Unknown Written by: Norman Spinrad Directed by: Marc Daniels The Enterprise discovers a superweapon capable of destroying entire planets. Summary The USS Enterprise receives a faint and garbled distress signal. It is apparently a starship's disaster beacon, but they are unable to make out any words aside from 'Constellation'. Enterprise enters system L-374 and finds her sister ship, the USS Constellation, a powerless wreck, drifting and abandoned. Captain James T. Kirk transports aboard Constellation, and finds Commodore Matthew Decker the sole survivor aboard. Decker is barely lucid, and informs Kirk that something "straight out of hell" destroyed his ship, which was investigating the breakup of the fourth planet in system L-374. His ship damaged beyond repair, Decker beamed his crew down to the third planet, only to have the planet killer consume that planet too, killing the entire crew while Decker remained helpless on the Constellation. Decker explains that the planet killer uses a pure anti-proton beam as its primary weapon, and creates an interference that prevents subspace communication. Kirk postulates that the planet killer is a machine, a "doomsday weapon", a bluff, and never meant to be used. This one is roaming the galaxies, consuming all in its path for fuel, including whole planets, it's alien makers long since dead. Kirk and Scotty remain on board the Constellation to rig her for towing, while McCoy returns to the Enterprise with Decker. When the planet killer returns, it attacks Enterprise, then heads for the densely inhabited Rigel system. Commodore Decker pulls rank and assumes command of Enterprise (using General Order 104, Section B, Paragraph 1a) over the objections of Spock. Decker orders an attack on the planet killer despite Spock's protest that its hull is made of neutronium and is therefore impermeable to attack from a single ship. Spock reccomends escaping the subspace interference in order to warn Starfleet Command, but a mentally unstable Decker will not hear of it. He orders Enterprise to move in closer, and the planet killer destroys the Enterprise's deflector shields and transporter. Kirk contacts Enterprise, and finding Decker in command, orders Spock to relieve him. But the planet killer has Enterprise in a tractor beam, and begins pulling her inside. Kirk and Scotty, still on board the Constellation, have managed to repair the impulse engines and recharge one of the phaser banks. Constellation distracts the planet killer, and both ships escape. Kirk makes contact with the Enterprise and upon learning of the command situation, he personally orders Spock to relieve Decker of command. Decker resists this insubordination in his eye, but Spock is firm enough in his actions to make the Commodore step down. Spock orders Decker to be taken to sickbay under armed escort. Suffering from a mental breakdown brought on by the extreme guilt over the loss of his crew, Commodore Decker escapes custody and steals a shuttlecraft from the Enterprise, piloting it on a suicide course directly into the weapon's orifice, where he is quickly destroyed. However, the Enterprise sensors detect a small drop in the power output of the planet killer. The shuttlecraft's explosion, however small, had in fact caused some minor damage to the weapon's interior. Realizing that Decker's idea, on a larger scale, might work, Kirk orders Scotty to set the Constellation to self-destruct and then return to Enterprise. Kirk pilots the Constellation on a direct course toward the weapon. He beams out at the last second, and the Constellation's engines detonate directly inside the planet killer's orifice, bypassing the neutronium hull and destroying it from within. Following the battle, Captain Kirk noted in his log that Commodore Decker gave his life in the line of duty. Background Information * This episode marks the debut of the very complex and re-designed engineering set. The dilithium crystal storage units now occupy the center of the floor (complete with recycled Horta eggs!), a ladder and upper level have been added into what was just a high bank of lighted panels in the first seaon. The set also is entered through a short spur hallway now, rather than as a side door off a main corridor. The console across from the forced-perspective impulse engines end of the set has been replaced by a doorway and moved to the main wall to the left of the red grid. The huge structures among which Kirk's evil self and Ben Finney once hid are not seen in detail again, but the Emergency Manual Monitor set was built on stilts on that spot, making its debut in "Mirror, Mirror". Those engine components would appear and disappear as scenes dictated-- they show up in "Day of the Dove" and "The Paradise Syndrome" but are absent completely in "Elaan of Troyius." * The equipment Scott pulls out of the new storage area near the doorway to Engineering is the same prop Spock uses in Metamorphosis as he works on the shuttlecraft. * James Doohan has cited this episode for years as his favorite. * Auxilary Control, first seen in this episode aboard the Constellation, was not a new set. It was merely a redress of the engineering room set with a few additional walls from the briefing room added in, including the large viewing screen from the briefing room in The Menagerie and Space Seed, which in turn was lifted from the bridge set used in Where No Man Has Gone Before. * The year this episode was filmed, AMT produced the first Enterprise model kits. One such kit was used to make the model used for the destroyed Constellation. The decals for the ship's registration numbers are just a scrambled version of "1701." The model does not have the details of the regular Enterprise miniatures, but still looks very convincing.....except at the end when it's flying into the doomsday weapon. * When Jimmy Doohan says, "Thirty seconds later...poof!", it doesn't sound like he is using his Scottish accent. * Footage of Scotty being tossed around Engineering is stock footage from Tomorrow is Yesterday. A console that appears only in that episode can be seen, and you can glimpse a crewman in red coveralls, too! * Norman Spinrad was displeased with the model used for the berserker-- he envisioned a doomsday machine bristling with all sorts of evil-looking weapons. Considering the challenging effects and set budget for this episode, the weapon turned out pretty well. * William Windom's powerful acting in this segment makes it doubly regretful that his character would not return to the show. Like Captain Queeg and his worry balls in "The Caine Mutiny," Matt Decker possessively clutches the record tapes from his ship throughout his time on the Enterprise. * William Windom most notably played the prosecutor opposite Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. Windom's prop in that film was a pencil, which he toyed with while cross-examining witnesses. * According to Mr. Windom, the director didn't know what to do with the scene of Decker describing what had happened to the Constellation, so he told Mr. Windom just to "improvise", during which time the director simply left the camera running and walked out to work on something else. William actually made a totally-improvised ten minute speech, and, in the end, they only used about a minute and a half of it. * Will Decker, from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", was Matt Decker's son. * Vulcans never bluff. Links and References Guest Stars * John Winston as Lieutenant Kyle * Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie * William Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley * William Windom as Commodore Matt Decker * Elizabeth Rogers as Lieutenant Palmer * John Copage as Elliot * Richard Compton as Washburn * Tim Burns as Russ * Jerry Catron as Montgomery * Vince Deadrick as Decker (Stunt Double) References antiproton; antiproton beam; ''Constellation'', USS; Doomsday machine; L-370 system; L-374 III; L-374 system; L-374 IV; Masada; neutronium; Rigel. Memorable Quotes * "I'm a doctor, not a mechanic."-- Leonard McCoy * "A cranky transporter is a mighty finicky piece of equipment to be gambling your life on."-- Montgomery Scott * "Matt... we're stonger with you than without you"--James T. Kirk * "Borgus frat" (or some similar expletive)-- Montgomery Scott * "They say there's no devil, Jim.... but there is. Right out of hell, I saw it!"-- Commodore Matt Decker Doomsday Machine, The de:Planeten-Killer (Episode) nl:The Doomsday Machine